Windows 10 S forces Bing, Edge on your kids. If you don't like it, get Win10 Pro – Microsoft After Tuesday's big launch of Windows 10 S, it emerged the software will force people to use Edge and Bing. How can that be? The supposedly streamlined operating system aimed at kids and their teachers will only run apps from Microsoft's official Windows 10 S software store. Right now, there are no third-party browsers …
>Monopoly? Good, then can we talk about not being able to install Firefox on my Chromebook?
You can install Linux on a chromebook albeit not straightforward, it will be interesting to see if you can on these W10$ machines or if they use the good old bullshit dodge of "all in the name of security and think of the children"
I love the way people scream monopoly over Microsoft then go all quiet when you mention goggle...
*whiney voice b.. b... b.. but I use google services and don't want to risk not having it.
Either way, have an upvote and a comment agreeing with you. Personally I couldn't care less if google went down overnight, I would just use another email address and deal with slower traffic for a while, oh wait faster traffic as 90% of advertising would stop overnight.
"I love the way people scream monopoly over Microsoft then go all quiet when you mention goggle..."
The difference with ChromeOS is that they didn't take an existing OS and nobble it so you can't run Firefox or change the search engine, and there isn't a magic "pay $50 to turn it back on again" switch.
If Google wanted to screw you over with ChromeOS they could, they have full control over the OS. Lock the search engine down, and only pre-approved Chrome extensions allowed, so no AdBlock or uBlock.
You mean they didn't take the existing Linux and didn't slapped Chrome as its UI?
Do you really believe ChromeOS was written from scratch?
Note also MS isn't blocking another browser install (yet - it would put it straight into antitrust targeting aim) - it's trying to avoid to set them as the default one so people will be force to use it most of the time. Can you fully replace Chrome on ChromeOS?
@Anonymous Coward (2 Months ago) "Note also MS isn't blocking another browser install "
Yes, in fact, Microsoft is actively blocking other browsers from being submitted to the Windows Store. You will NEVER see Chrome, FireFox, Vivaldi or any other third party in the Windows Store. The terms of the Windows Store basically third party browsers from being brought to the store.
The only thing someone can do is create a wrapper for the Edge browser (EdgeHTML) so that you could set a different default search engine (but still not a default browser).
A profound difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple has never pulled that kind of stunt on Mac OS X/macOS with the App Store. You can install whatever (default) browser you want on macOS and set whatever (default) search engine.
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One of the problems with Chromebooks, at least in Europe, is that they are more expensive than an equivalent PC with either Linux or Windows pre-installed.
Heck, the Samsung with ARM chip that came out a couple of years back was available for $599 in Germany. No wonder that Chromebooks have hardly made a dent in the market.
No wonder that Chromebooks have hardly made a dent in the market >> well maybe in Europe but in the US they're outselling Mac's 2-1. They're actually one of the most if not the most secure end device on the market, being that you as a user cannot install software on it if running native ChromeOS. They also have the TPM chip which checks a hash of the OS to see if anything has been tampered with. Very smart.
They're actually one of the most if not the most secure end device on the market, being that you as a user cannot install software on it if running native ChromeOS
.. made by Google. I trust Google even less than Microsoft as they directly benefit financially from breaching privacy, so no thanks.
How that fits the EU ruling about IE in Windows? Or because they renamed it to Edge they believe it now doesn't apply?
It looks to me Nadella is trying to check how far it can go in breaking the rules. Maybe as soon as EU asks MS some hundred millions of dollars for breaking them, he will step back.
> How that fits the EU ruling about IE in Windows? Or because they renamed it to Edge they believe it now doesn't apply?
MS could just say that Windows S doesn't have a dominant market position - which is true. It was only Windows' dominance at the time that opened them up to the EU ruling about IE. You can't be accused of abusing a monopoly if you don't actually have one.
That depends on what market the antitrust authority considers - MS may attempt to include phones and tablets into it, but the EU may not accept it - otherwise Google could attempt to say it has no dominant position in smartphones because MS still dominates the desktop market.
StatCounter, for example. reports Windows at 84.22%, macOS 11.63%, Linux 1.67%, ChromeOS 0,76% for April 2017. Hardly to say it doesn't hold a dominant position.
I'm sure MS it's trying to probe how far it can go with this, but it can find itself to be probed...
They'll run into the European Commission anti-trust rules which will fine them a huge sum of money, as this is not the first time they have tried this (bundled browser with no offer of an alternative).
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-196_en.htm
Meh, I give it a few months before they either flip themselves or someone screams monopoly exploitation..
I suspect TTF (Time To Flip) will be measured in weeks, rather than months, for a very simple reason: we are talking about Microsoft, and thus pretty shoddy code.
I reckon it will take mere days, at best weeks before someone finds a new (or, more accurately, "yet another") potentially devastating security defect in Edge (or Win 10) that will force them to open things up of face the usual "think of the children" chants. Microsoft will obviously not be able to respond with "if you care so much about your children, why did you force them to use Windows in the first place" like we can, so while they (are pretending to) fix things they will open things up to take the heat off their marketing team and those poor grassroots forum posters that have to downvote all negative Microsoft comments :).
Weeks, not months.
"I reckon it will take mere days, at best weeks before someone finds a new (or, more accurately, "yet another") potentially devastating security defect in Edge"
You're right. We'll never see an end to defects in MS software.
Except Chrome and Firefox have had even more defects judging by the cvedetails website, so your rant is FUD and it's no wonder you're posting anonymously.
Well, I give it less. I can see the situation... I walk into a computer shop, I can have a crippled windows 10 without the flexibility I want, I won't buy it. Eventually the shop will end up offering you a linux distro on the box because it is not making any sales. From there to your msft shares being less valuable than your toilet paper about an hour.
It may be sooner. I think there was some sort of court order to the effect that Microsoft was not allowed to block or cause the functionality of software from other vendors to be reduced on the windows platform. It was out of a lawsuit on web browsers ironically - Netscape v Microsoft.
To many, an OS is just that thing they use to load up the applications they use. If that application is only available on Windows, then switching to Linux doesn't solve anything - regardless of what one thinks of MS.
People who support Linux would do better to acknowledge that straightforward fact than to ignore it. WINE is sometimes suitable, and some applications are suited to running off the cloud through a browser (OS agnostic). Interesting times.
,the last truely "owned by the purchaser"* home OS will be the last OS from MS i use.
I really dont relish using linux as i know windows inside and out and the prospect of learning another OS with eleventy million varieties doesn't appeal but i refuse to dance to Microsoft's drum...
And what a discordent drum it is!
You listening MS? No of course you're not. You stopped listening to your user base 8 years ago.
*I know you dont own it per-se BUT i can turn off all the snooping, am not tied to that fucking APP(auling) store mentality and have a choice of browser and search engines.
"The basics are the same and you can make it as complicated and fancy as you want, or not."
Having been using one of the eleventy million varieties on my desktop PC since late last year, the only way to avoid making its use complicated seems to be to not try to do anything with it beyond use existing software, and avoid any peripherals that might need drivers.
"Having been using one of the eleventy million varieties on my desktop PC since late last year, the only way to avoid making its use complicated seems to be to not try to do anything with it beyond use existing software, and avoid any peripherals that might need drivers."
As someone who switched to FreeBSD back in the days when 4.3 was the Release version, and has used a number of Linux version too, you are spot on. Anything which needs a non-included driver can be a nightmare to get going, if at all. "Common" devices, such as TV cards, web cams, scanners and even some printers are pretty much windows only and your average user is not going to consider that until after purchase.
In some case, even "supported" hardware sometimes still requires hunting down esoteric files and manually copying them to special places. This is not specifically the fault of Linux in the same way that MS don't provide all the drivers for devices, but it is a stumbling block for average users.
Sorry to be pedantic.
There is only one "Linux", the kernel, what you complain about is that there are too many Linux distributions.
Advise to newcomers overwhelmed by the sheer variety.
There are three main families you care about as a beginner:
RedHat/CentOS
Debian/Ubuntu
Suse
My advice is to stick to Ubuntu or CentOS until you're familiar with how they work, once you understand the basics you can move easily from distro to distro.
My personal recomendation is to use Ubuntu MATE as your fist Linux, specially if you mistakenly think that Linux has to be Windows-like.
I won't lie, it takes effort, but trust me there is no looking back.
At the time of reply you have 15 upvotes and 4 downvotes for saying you won't buy another Windows OS if you have no control over it.
I'm 100% with you on this. Others will take a different stance but I'm mystified as to why they would feel strongly enough to downvote.
Perhaps we have delicate flowers who object to the F word.
When everything is turned off in Windows 10, it doesn't leak any more information back to Microsoft than Windows 7 does.
Windows 10 offers a lot more services, but for those, you need to allow more and more data to be passed back to MS.
I am assuming that cornz1 doesn't use an Android od iOS smartphone, if he is worried about data slurping.
"When everything is turned off in Windows 10, it doesn't leak any more information back to Microsoft than Windows 7 does."
only if you install ALL of the updates...
And on top of that, Win-10-nic is 2D FLATSO FLUGLY, has "the METRO" SETTINGS intermixed with *EVERYTHING* that control panel USED TO manage well, and "all that cruft" etc. etc. etc. so that even with Classic Shell, it's STILL lipstick on a boar, and NOT on "the oinky end".
Windows 7 IS "the last Windows". What happened after Sinofsky is basically something else...
Here is why the downvotes:
- You are never "in control" of a closed source O.S.
- As someone already replied, there are not X million different linux, just a common base with as many flavours you like. That is called "customisation". I'm not saying you MUST adopt an alternate O.S., but it's just being blatantly lazy not even giving it a try as is apparently the case.
- M$ didn't stop to listen to its customers 8 year ago, they stop in fact 15 years ago!
I don't normally do advocating for the Devil - only when stuff rubs me the wrong way.
- You are also never "in control" of what kind of engine hums away in the bowels of a ship you aren't willing to rebuild yourself. Historically, that bothered an astonishingly low number of captains as long as they were able to steer said ship whichever way they wanted to go.
- So whenever I have an issue with something that almost (but not quite) works - which is basically 24/7 until I just give up - I can just copy-paste the rare and preciousssss magic incantations offered as solution by a fellow sufferer for any other Linux? No...? Sorry, but "X million different Linux" it is then.
- Is this a "have you stopped beating your wife" trick question...? When have they _ever_ listened to anybody over the sound of all that "kerching"?!?
You are also never "in control" of what kind of engine hums away in the bowels of a ship you aren't willing to rebuild yourself.
True, the captain seldom had a say in what engine was installed. However, the captain could learn and even touch any and every part of that engine should he wish to do so. Indeed most captains had a very good working knowledge of how their engines worked. And they had people in their crew who could repair much of the engine and associated equipment while at sea, sometimes even while the engine was running (eg on some Fiat engines it was possible for a piston to be removed and serviced at sea while the ship ran on the remaining pistons, and under current maritime laws ships must have at least 2 engines and should one fail it can be serviced while the ship sails on the other).
Engines are open source I'm afraid.
I can just copy-paste the rare and preciousssss magic incantations offered as solution by a fellow sufferer for any other Linux? No...?
Actually, often "yes". More often than not. I use Mint but have often used solutions for Ubuntu or Debian. And in a number of cases I've found the answers on a Redhat or related tutorial, because while the system is based on Debian the software I run often has the same configuration despite the different package manager. So someone who uses say Courier Imap under Redhat can tell me how to fix it under Debian if I manage to break something (a few paths may be different but it's not like that's difficult to work out, and you can chose to use different paths unlike Windows which probably still throws a hissy fit if you try to move your personal documents off C:...)
The writing was on the wall back in Win ME / Win XP days. I felt like I was not so much a customer, as a sheep for the shearing -- if not a crook or an enemy. I was savvy enough to get around most of the arbitrary obstacles, but didn't agree that the hassle was justifiable or necessary.
And I was a managing a book-store, not an IT guy. And I could see where things were going. So I did some reading, and managed to install Linux (Debian, even -- it's amazing what one can do if one is prepared to read the directions). By 2002 I wasn't using Windows for anything except for the final draft of my resume (where employers insisted on Word) and TurboTax.
There was the odd technical hassle... which was mostly, the extra effort involved in making sure that the hardware wasn't "Windows only" -- and at least it wasn't a case of the customer being actively for profit and/or control. It was a fair trade -- and actually less work, than maintaining a Windows-based working environment environment. Since I'm not a big gamer, I simply didn't "need" Windows (and the gaming situation has vastly improved).
Linux is a lot easier to get into now, too.
I can only assume that actual IT techies who couldn't see the inevitable were just in love (despite protestations to the contrary) with Microsoft, or just too close to the technology to see the big picture. Actually, I'm amazed at how many techies *still* can't see the obvious -- I guess it must be a "not seeing the forest for the trees" kind of thing.
Yet another very good reason to be glad that I abandoned Windows (and all things MS) when Vista came along. While I do agree that Win 7 was the last decent (controllable / properly configurable) Windows version, I don't regret for one moment making the switch. The Linux update process has been an absolute revelation - all OSs should work as well as this. I'm a very happy green penguin now.
New in Windows 10, regardless of flavour, is a crippled and brain dead Family Safety offering.
It used to be that you could manage internet access (effectively implementing a firewall on a per child basis), but now you can only do that with Edge and (perhaps, I can't remember) IE. The reason? Something about it being too hard to keep up with third party changes in the browsers.
I guess M$ can say that Windows 10 S is safer for kids, but honestly, I think they could have easily provided the "firewall" functionality at a lower level, e.g. just above the NIC/wifi driver level. Then it would work for all.
I suspect it is more about all that data slurping opportunity loss. "Of course we don't knowingly capture data from children" they say. Pull the other one.
"I think they could have easily provided the "firewall" functionality at a lower level, e.g. just above the NIC/wifi driver level. Then it would work for all."
Ah, but then someone would be able to add firewall rules to block Microsoft tracking.
An effective family friendly system will require rules to be modified. You could bludgeon it in and wrap the rules tight in the kernel, like Microsoft does with IE and Edge. But that would require a restart for every update. And updates would need to be daily, or at least weekly. People don't like weekly restarts anymore, not since Windows 2000 showed that a stable OS is possible, unlike Windows ME, 98, 95.
That leaves the option open for a registry or file based family firewall rules. But someone will quickly find out how to add rules and will add rules to stop sending data to Microsoft. Microsoft would never allow that. After all, they have the "cloud first, mobile first" philosophy, which is just really hipster doofus slang for "paying customers last".
Actually, you haven't a clue about how an OS and its kernel work - and why Windows need a restart for some executable updates - which may be in user space as well.
While you can modify some settings used by the kernel without any need to restart the PC (i.e. when you change some of the video or network cards settings) - and kernel code can easily hide data from user space code.
What you mean is that some "features" are hardcoded and thereby ignore and/or bypass any settings you may made.
Me thinks we have been down this road before .. the scenery looks very similar though not exactly the same. Something about Netscape. If you can't really innovate, lockout or bundle to block newcomers or competition. Something about Microsoft not being a monopoly? Any company that can take the tactics it did to force Windows 10 down people's throats is a monopoly.
The MS spokesman will say something like, "You see, there's a very good reason why we've done this. It's very technical and veeery complicated. It needs Edge because cloud. Only Edge can offer the cloud as it was meant to be experienced."
Looking forward to the registry hack landing about the day after.
> Any company that can take the tactics it did to force Windows 10 down people's throats is a monopoly.
The version of Windows 10 that MS sneakily upgraded users' computers to is not Windows S. Windows S is unlikely to to become the dominant desktop OS. It's not my aim to defend MS, but just to point out that the situation now is so different to that of the Netscape days that the lawyers will have plenty to argue about, should it get that far.
Both the French and EU authorities are awaiting more information from MS about what data they collect from users, with a view to forcing them to make things clearer.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/21/14682256/microsoft-windows-10-eu-privacy-concerns
forces Chrome on users as well...
This was a move to counter ChromeOS in, among other places, education and Microsoft are trying to get developers to release their software through the store, so not really a surprise.
Given Mozilla's and Google's reluctance so far to use the store to distribute their browsers, it is a clever move on Microsoft's part. People will be forced to use Edge, something they probably only ever use to download Firefox or Chrome on most W10 PCs. Some people probably won't bother with the hassle of switching, more sophisticated users will get the free upgrade to 10 Pro and install their favourite browser.
No one is "locked" into chrome. There are however programs important to institutions and business that have been used 20 years+ and are sadly still only on Windows. Not as many though.
There are plenty of Windows users that have no choice. Fortunately I'm no longer in that demographic. Stopped using Windows in December 2016. Windows 7 spending too long on updates and Windows 10 is like a bad version of Lisa or early monochrome all in one 68000 Mac, Gem and Windows 2.0 or Windows 286. WFWG 3.11 with win32s was better than Win10 garbage.
> Given Mozilla's and Google's reluctance so far to use the store to distribute their browsers,
Does it not occur to you that their absence from the store is because Microsoft won't allow them* to be there ?
* Unlike Google and Apple where Microsoft software is in their stores.
We’ve all know people who try to corner you at parties because nobody else will talk to them.
Eventually they stop getting invitations to parties.
This is Microsoft’s desperate attempt to increase statistics by forcing their products onto you and then pretending it’s a sign of popularity.
"Has anyone ever worked out why Microsoft pricing is always so bizarre."
How many people pay MS consumer prices anyway in recent years?
In the vast majority of cases, the system builder (or even refurbisher) hides the OS cost in the system price. So the advertised consumer price for MS's low-end OSes is irrelevant. As is the high end price, for those customers whose IT budget is sufficiently large that they don't buy retail either.
so many comments - but forty quid isn't much.
Certainly one table full of drinks, not a complete meal for one, 80 cigs, two knee-tremblers etc.
Ad with a push in September for the student market this might be the chance of getting a touch-screen lappy with W10 pro for a decent discount.
That is how much I pay for a video game I hope to get many hours of enjoyment out of. 40p per hour is OK.
Drinks - that is too much, how much are your paying?
Meal for 1 - too much again
cig - not sure on the value of a 4CIG EMU I am afraid but scrap value is a lot.
Knee trembler - no idea what it is even.
Operating systems, I do not know if I have ever paid for one. Free with PC?, free from internet, free from a MSDN disc from work.
I would say the MSDN disc one was a nightmare to update and install, it hated all my exisiting drives, the free from internet one was much easier, and more well behaved.
So I may have paid for XP as it was on the PC, but I don't think it was that much.
That would be an illegal copy as well - just like "free from the Internet" - MSDN license are limited to development work. And if that is your employer property, you're using it illegally as well.
Well, if you're not used to pay for software, and obtain it illegally, you can't really understand the objections other people may have when they buy it, and don't like to be screwed.
MSDN CD, well they told me I had to move from XP, and it was sitting around not being used.
That would be an illegal version then. Have you not read MS's license? The person who buys the software is not allowed to transfer it to anyone else no matter what! (so if I buy you a laptop as a present, you still have to purchase a Windows license as I cannot buy one for you, whether per-installed or separate...)
Don't think I should use the troll icon as I think it is kinda true of Win10, or was it 8. Can't recall now.
"That would be an illegal copy as well - just like "free from the Internet" - MSDN license are limited to development work. And if that is your employer property, you're using it illegally as well.
Well, if you're not used to pay for software, and obtain it illegally, you can't really understand the objections other people may have when they buy it, and don't like to be screwed."
Son, I haven't paid more than $10 (that's ten, t-e-n, dollars American) for a Microsoft OS in over a decade and a half. And haven't paid, period, for an Apple OS in even longer. And it was perfectly legal. I have been associated with several fine higher educational organizations either as a student or an instructor for quite some time. In the beginning, all of them would allow those who were students and enrolled in certain classes ('Microsoft Operating Systems, CIS1001") to purchase an Official Microsoft DVD containing the latest OS for $10. One to a student, available in the bookstore. (And the bookstore clerks quite often didn't ask to see anything proving that said students were enrolled in said classes, and sometimes didn't check to see if they were even students. And even if the students were actual students and were enrolled, it was perfectly possible to drop the class for a full refund. Not that _I_ ever did anything of the sort, of course.) Later on, MS OSes were available from Dreamspark (I believe that there's been a name change, to Imagine) and this time for $0.00. I have, in my disc case, a nice Win XP (original XP) and a nice Vista (got overcharged for that one, even at $10) DVD. I've got Win XP SP3 through 10 ISOs (and Server 2000 through 2016 ISOs as well) from Dreamspark and can either burn DVDs or load onto USB drives at will.
At about the same time I was in Apple's beta program and got lots and lots and lots of DVDs by mail, usually including a DVD of the release version, until Apple said 'sod this for a game for soldiers' and started sending new OSes out over the Internet.
And, of course, I've got CDs from Ubuntu from the days when they'd send you free discs if you asked them, plus ISOs from them, and Mint, and other Linux distros.
I also have both FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
It is perfectly possible to have legal, free, or very cheap, OSes and has been so for a very long time. And not just Linux or BSD, either.
I have here a Lenovo X201 "tablet" laptop. A touch screen is vital for a tablet and pointless on a laptop, unless it converts to a tablet (which the X201 does). However an OS GUI AND ALL ITS APPLICATIONS really needs to be designed for Touch or keyboard / mouse. No-one has ever convincingly done both in the same application and GUI.
The X201 came with Win7 pro. Its owner was disgusted when it upgraded to Win 10. The screen is touch AND a Wacom tablet. So the screen works well for arty stuff, or folded as a tablet for a specialist touch application.
It's of zero advantage on Win7 or Win10 for web, email, wordprocessing, spreadsheet, etc as a laptop. Most applications are unusable with it as a tablet.
So I can't see the point of a touch screen laptop unless it has screen folding into a tablet and has two GUIs and two sets of applications for common stuff.
Oh the X201 works much better with Linux Mint. WiFi, Touch, ethernet, screen rotation, Wacom all just worked.
I have a tablet, hardly use it as the Android applications are too limited. I either use my Sony Z1 phone or my newer Lenovo E460 laptop. Which is half the price (or less) of the flagship MS touch laptop or any decent Apple laptop. It's not a budget E460 either, but full RAM, i5 and AMD GPU. Linux Mint + Mate + Redmond + Wine, and used once "XP on OpenBox VM"
Trying to figure a use for the X201, to justify keeping it!
Q) Why do people run Windows?
A) To run applications.
Q) Why Windows over anything else?
A) WIN32.
That is it, the ONLY reason to run a Windows OS over anything else is the best WIN32 support there is, and of course also WIN64. But WIN32 is the important one.
Who cares about app stores and the like?
The simple question is.
Can it run all of my WIN32 software?
If yes OK
If no FDISK and install something useful.
Exactly! I can only upvote once (and I tried).
The only Windows Store apps I have are a few casual games (e.g. Lara Croft GO).
Mostly just out of curiosity to compare them against the Android versions.
How has Win10S been made to run on low-spec anyway? I couldn’t find any concrete info.
When Windows 10 slowed to a crawl on my Celeron box with a spinning rust drive, and I couldn’t re-install the old W8 (with Bing) again, I had to put Debian on it. Flies like ****.
And at least with Wine and DOSbox, that runs the few old Win32 and DOS games I still like.
Took 2 days to install updates as well, with the other drives unplugged.
Always gets me that. Linux is done updating 20 minutes after you start the install, unless you have a really slow connection OR old install media. Even when you have a gig of updates, it's still figured out what it needs in 20 seconds or less.
But 7? Can be on a high speed connection with SSD drive and 48 hours later is still trying to figure out updates!
(That and the attempts at slurpiness are my only real dislikes for 7, wouldn't use it for banking etc but do use it for some gamestuff I haven't bothered to try on a real OS)
Let's discuss what everyone is thinking, yet no one is saying.
Microsoft always get it wrong, actually Chris Caposella, Chief Marketing Officer always gets it wrong to be precise, being the one in charge. Where is the attention to detail with Marketing?
Promotional material/videos shows USB-C ports on this Surface Laptop, yet the final product doesn't have them. This is just basic, in terms of not what to do, regards Marketing.
I get that it's designed to be a sealed 4 year life device, its design to "wear" (like clothing) get older, get replaced. The fabric alone, takes design cues from your Sofa at home, who in their right minds wants to buy a second hand bed/fabric sofa, let alone a 4-10 year old one?
Microsoft have missed it completely. The reason a lot of students buy Macbooks is because they keep their inherent value. Yes, they are expensive but the resale value is also high. This design is almost designed to kill the resale value of the Surface Laptop as soon as you walk out the store.
It almost feels like NSA helped design it, Microsoft "How else can we help (the NSA) to combat script-kiddies?", well you could use a fabric material to collect all the detritus for us too. That's very useful at airports when taking swabs.
Come on, have you seen what get collected between the Metal frame and the clear plastic wrap of the average HP keyboard? Ergh! It's not pleasant and mostly 'alive'.
The idea of using a fabric keyboard, shared between other class members/collegues/teenage brothers/sisters?
No fcuking way!
---------------------
There will be a clean metal version with 2 USB-type C ports by Xmas, or this will fail.
"Microsoft have missed it completely."
Maybe not:
"The reason a lot of students buy Macbooks is because they keep their inherent value. Yes, they are expensive but the resale value is also high. This design is almost designed to kill the resale value of the Surface Laptop as soon as you walk out the store."
Planned obsolescence - the oldest trick in the book.
The port selection did raise an eyebrow. MS did have late-stage prototypes with two USB-C ports (which were used in the production of marketing materials) but have defended their final choice, saying that USB-A is still very common.
That is of course true, but why not both? My opinion is that the faster the transition from USB-A (and power input) to USB-C, the more convenient things will be for everyone.
You can bet the pin-outs for those USB-type C ports are on the motherboard, but they found the power supply design wasn't robust enough to take power switches between battery/usb-c power cables, so last minute "hacked" them from the final design.
I'll say I told you so, once iFixit does a teardown.
They might be right, but this isn't the example that shows that. This isn't the version of Windows that users were coerced into migrating to from a previous version. If they didn't previously have features on a machine (because this version comes on new machines) they can't be said to have lost them.
There is a charge to upgrade to the professional version, but that was always the case. (Although this Pro version isn't as 'Pro' as previous versions - not being able to override system restarts to install updates, I'm looking at you)
No. While low-end systems usually come with the Home, higher-end ones usually come with the Pro. My Surface Pro came with Windows 8 Pro, not Home - which is what I would have expect given the price.
While a $49 or €49 (although I guess it will be more) is not expensive, there's the psychological effect - especially if Windows S becomes the default install for expensive machines as well. After you have spend say €1500 or more for a laptop, you feel very Scrooge-like to be asked some tens more for a real full OS...
I don't know what culture is pervading MS and where it comes from, but it is a toxic one akin to fraudolent businesses. Maybe S is for Scam....
Windows 10 S reminds me of those starter editions of Windows 7 that they did to run on netbooks (remember them) it sort of has some functionality but is really just a crippled version of the full OS. So why worry about being locked into using Edge and Bing on a platform that is essential Windows RT but on x86 and will be dead in 18 months anyway.
Edge they might get away with; I doubt many users even fully realise that there is a thing between the computer and the internet. All that changes is the border round the screen.
But Bing?
Goggle- whether you Loath it or Hate it, does at least produce useful search results more often than not.
Whereas ask Bing anything uncommon and it still seems to fall back to trying to sell you something. (Though it has improved !=anywhere good enough yet).
"ask Bing anything uncommon" - I don't even have much luck asking it "common" things. I wanted to grab a copy of the Win7 Convenience Update Rollup (or whatever it's called) a few months back for a PC rebuild I was doing for a friend and all I had to hand at the time (i.e. not requiring me to expend unreasonable amounts of energy moving across the room) was a newly-installed Win10 machine. So I fired up Edge and typed something like "windows 7 convenience rollup" into the search bar (what could possibly go wrong, after all?) and got... bloody double glazing! *facepalm*, www.google.com, "windows 7 convenience rollup", ah, the Win7 Convenience Rollup.
FFS Microsoft, at least get your search engine to find stuff on your own site! There's a reason people use Google: It Just Works(tm). (That's also why I use Linux these days.)
"Google: It Just Works"
It used to work perfectly until maybe 10 years ago or so. Then they fiddled with the search, removed +- operators and nowadays if you're searching for phrases it also finds synonyms so I constantly need to use the "verbatim" search option. Which - of course - one can't combine with things like the 'search by date' option.
BTW, that 'windows 7 convenience rollup' produced equally fine results on Bing/Edge. Google Search is still miles better, and that's a fact, but calling Bing useless is just disingenuous.
Soooo back in the day the EU took MS to court to stop them bundling IE with every machine by default.
But now that's ok with Win10 and Win10S?
Same for Google, it's ok for them to bundle Chrome with every android device and block it's removal?
I hate the idea of Google in schools, kids forced to sign their souls to the great G in exchange for access to their tracking services.
They are kids, fuck off you should allow them to use the stuff without monitoring until they are old enough to decide to give you information.
Plus all these 'cheap' devices are designed to work with a single user. So the firsm are trying to get schools to buy every kid a device when in reality the school would be happy with one between ten.
The difference is that Chromebooks in Europe account for 0.42% of the market - which puts them below the radar of any antitrust investigation (http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/europe).
In the US, it's only a matter of how many money Google or MS or <put your company here> funnels into the pockets of the administration in charge, congress members, and policy makers.
Which is 0.42% higher than the current market share of Windows 10 S.
This story is just BS isn't it? Firstly there are at least ten browsers in the Windows Store, not zero as this story states. They're not Firefox or Chrome but that's down to Mozilla and Google. Secondly these browsers can default to any search engine, and many default to Google rather than bing. Although as Google is inferior in every way to bing except maps (sorry, I know that's earned me a lot of down votes but it is true) why would anyone.
The true antitrust story is that while Microsoft makes it's most popular applications available on every platform under the sun, Google and Apple do not.
> You are looking at the wrong store - the Windows 10 S store doesn't have any browsers in it. And probably won't.
Wrong. There is no such thing as "the Windows 10 S store". There is one store for all Windows 10. And within that each app advises on device availability. So while a old phone app such as "Connectivity Tiles" is clearly marked as available for Mobile only, a modern UWP app such as "Monument Browser" will work on Xbox One, PC, Mobile, Holographic and Hub, so will work on Windows 10 S.
> Exactly where do I find MS Office for Ubuntu, or RedHat or BSD ?
Sorry, I meant every platform under the sun that's not exclusively used by readers of ElReg... I'm really going for those down votes...
Microsoft's Office apps (and many more) are in Apple and Google stores. Google's apps are not in Windows Store. That's 400 million devices Google aren't allowing their apps on in favour of their own OS.
this is about kids and restrictions on accounts for them. this is talking about programs you can download outside the microsoft store too. google has hated microsoft for a while now. they refused to make apps for windows phones and even blocked microsoft from making apps when google said they could and blocked windows phones from using some google sites before. this has noting to do with microsoft blocking anything. no one wants to add there programs to microsoft store so if they don't add them then people can't get them through it.
It's crap. For those with an interest in artistic pursuits, there's no Creative Cloud (or anything close). Interested in learning software development? There's nothing. Microsoft's own tools aren't there. There's no virtualisation software*. If you're a student, you can activate Office and write an essay. That's about it. It'll work for those who could otherwise make do with a Chromebook (and can be an improvement, given it is less dependent a connection), but is badly hobbled by the quality of Microsoft's store.
* Which I'd advocate as the starting point for anyone learning software development - far better to break a VM than to break Windows.
It will be interesting to see how the store work for expensive applications like Adobe CC. I don't believe Adobe is willingly to handle 30% of its revenues to MS. Till now, stores has been used to sell mostly applications often made by small companies or even single developers at low prices, which may not have the required infrastructure to sell worldwide. Big names applications are often free counterparts of an expensive desktop product.
But companies like Adobe has the infrastructure, it gives them much more control on their products, and probably doesn't cost them 30% of the revenues, especially since they don't move boxes but sell cloud subscriptions.
Maybe MS can make preferential deals with such companies to lure them into the store, but the loss of control may made many of them very wary, as well as the UWP limitations.
Anyway, I can't see the need for a VM to teach development - most tools used today make very difficult to break Windows with an application, you need far advanced skills to achieve that, it's no longer Win 3.1 or Win95 times - and who learns programming today with a native C/C++/Pascal compiler?
This is destined to fail, as it's got none of the advantages of a Chromebook (security, simplicity, boot speed, zero maintenance, instantly good battery life), and it's got many of the failings of windows 10. It's also embedded with Microsoft sneaky tricks like this.
It wasn't that long ago (four or five years) when any El Reg commentard criticising Microsoft or praising Linux would get near-infinite down-thumbage and many scathing responses. Even something really mild like:
I love Windows. I hate Linux. But the other day I hit a use case, one that will probably only ever come up one in a hundred million times, where Linux did a *slightly* better job than Windows.
Even that would get massive scorn. The possibility that there could ever be a use case where Linux might be slightly better than Windows could not be countenanced.
Now? Just about every post attacks Microsoft. Those posts get a few down-thumbs but many more up-thumbs. It's not that Microsoft's "lock in users and screw them for all they can pay" policy has ever changed, it's just that they've become a lot more blatant about it. So blatant that even former Microsoft lovers have had enough and come to recognise what some of us have long known.
I remember when it was all fields around here...
No, the real difference is that most MS users never believed their OS is a religion, unlike most Linux commentards here. And it's much easier to get downvotes by slightly praising Windows than praising Linux, or even by hinting feebly that Linux has its shares of issues (just look at what will happen at this post...)
Windows users uses it because they can find the tools they need, aren't scared by the idea of paying for software, and never felt the need to assert a political of philosophical view by using an OS.
Thereby they have no issue in criticizing Microsoft when it does stupid things - and it's not the first time.
Still, as long as Linux - or any other OS - doesn't offer true, full replacements for the tools they need, they will keep on using it (and telling what they think about MS), because an OS doesn't pay your bills.
>Windows users uses it because they can find the tools they need
In the MS App store? Really?
Ok, I agree with much of your sentiment but when you look at how MS, Oracle, Apple, the security vendors etc behave its no wonder no-one wants to play with them any more. They are likely to stab you in the back and take your toys.
Google gets a semi-pass because although they are horribly creepy, they make their money by giving you stuff for free which makes life easier. The others could make your life easy - OS development is a sunk cost - but choose not to. See people turn on Google too when they start restricting Android patches and so on to force upgrades.
It used to be the case that MS made money by releasing a new OS with new and better features. Now they've released a new OS Which Does Less! YAY! Or not.
Linux, on the other hand, adds features to each new release. You may not like systemd but there is no denying that it is a technical/feature improvement in some way, even if you don't need or want that particular trade-off.
Not in the store - of course, which wasn't compulsory in any version till now. If you read one of my posts above, MS may be playing with fire because it yet to see if the store (and UWP) could work for large, complex, expensive applications - which are the ones that keep people on Windows (not a browser and some simple apps).
The fact that many software vendors are not charities it's irrelevant when you need their software to perform your work. They are not the only companies you'd like to stay away from (think about banks, pharma, telcos, cars, etc.) , but many builds the things or the services you need, and you have often no other choice.
If Linux is an option for you (sysadmin, web developer, etc.), the better - yet you may still need commercial support or applications even on it, when the free software available doesn't fit your needs.
No one is going to sink their businesses just because they hate MS, Apple, Oracle, Google, etc. Sure, they're ugly, but you calculate your ROI - including the risk they may try to screw you in the future-, and if it is good enough, why risk with solutions that don't fit your needs? Sure, you have to plan for the future also - Windows 7 will live until 2020, thereby we are carefully observing what MS is aiming at - because it may become a risk too high. Yet, in the past twenty-five years - which is not a small time frame - Windows applications helped to improve the business. Is that going to change? Maybe, so we have to plan for it, business environments change, and you have to adapt - cleverly.
I don't like Google, but as long as its search engine is the best around, I have little choice but use it, or just spend a lot of time looking for what I need. I can stay away from GMail - but only because I can run my mail server, not something everybody can do.
Can't really understand why you believe Google gets a semi-pass because "they make their money by giving you stuff for free which makes life easier.". Actually, they don't make money by giving you stuff for free, that's just the bait for making money out of you and whatever they can sell about you - just as Windows 10 aims to do. It's really true you can boil a frog slowly - just make it believe the water and pot are free....
They would get so much flak if they didn't do so many stupid things.
Like resale a £1000 laptop marketed as if it was a £150 Chromebook.
Plus the £50 upgrade fine. Why fucking bother the damn thing is next to useless without it how about market the thing as a full W10 laptop for £50 more and don't bother with the stupid extra step.
Still too dear, still a stupid idea. At least we know the guys from Winpho are still working.
Has anyone thought of air-dropping them in to 'aid' the current Syrian regime. They'll have the whole thing in collapsed within weeks.
Microsoft lost the original IE anti-trust case because they had a virtual monopoly on end compute in those days. Apple was discounted as having too little market share even though IIRC they did force users to use Opera.
Today it's a vastly different market. This is a single product line from Microsoft.
Paraphrasing theie argument "if you don't want to be forced to use Edge/Bing then use an alternative OS, there are many available."
That's why this wont fall foul of EU anti-trust laws.
Apple was discounted as having too little market share even though IIRC they did force users to use Opera.
Apple shipped MSIE with OS X up to 2003/4 timeframe, when they started shipping Safari. Note that MSIE was still available, and still shipped, until Microsoft stopped supporting it for Mac, with v5.2.something. Apple at one point also shipped Netscape. Apple never shipped Opera. Apple didn't, and still doesn't, force users to use Safari; users are perfectly free to download any other browser of their choice and may then delete Safari without consequence. In the early days, they didn't even need to download MSIE for Mac should they want to use it, it shipped alongside Safari and only was removed when Microsoft declined to support it further. To my certain knowledge MSIE for Mac still worked as late as OS X 10.7. It might well have worked with later versions of the OS, but around there I cleaned out apps which I hadn't used in a while from my Application folder (after first archiving them, just in case, of course). I later purged the archives of apps which hadn't been unarchived in two years, figuring that I was never going to use them again even if they would still work, which some couldn't as Apple had 'depreciated' APIs they needed to run.
In addition the the big boys like MSIE, Firefox, Netscape, and Safari, there were several lesser-known web browsers like OmniWeb. The guys at Omni actually thought that someone would pay $50 for a web browser at first; they learned better. OmniWeb is still around, but isn't a major player. Note that OmniWeb shipped in the late 90s, well before OS X, and so was available during the MSIE on Mac period as an alternative browser. For a while there it was the best web browser available on Macs, able to handle pages others couldn't and to do it at a speed others couldn't match. I used it a lot in the 2002-2006 timeframe, as MSIE wouldn't handle certain pages and Firefox was slow and annoying and Safari was a typical Apple version 1.0 product, or not very good. And Netscape was on the way out.
But the Home version will not connect to a work network or a school network.
How would it know? Is MS doing extra slurp on networks to tell where/what they are?
What of BYOD businesses? Are those who wish to use 10 and home and take their device to work forced to use other devices?
And what of the likes of computer repair stores (though MS's efforts at locking out repair tools other than their own stuff (which seldom is as good as freebies like F4, Hirem, and the many many tools on those disks) - since the computer store's network is a "work" network for the employees, would MS 10 Home machines refuse to connect to them?
"" But the Home version will not connect to a work network or a school network."
How would it know? Is MS doing extra slurp on networks to tell where/what they are?"
The distinction you're looking for may be the Windows domain thing, or whatever it's called these days (Active Directory?).
Lots of certified MS-dependent IT people don't want non-MS kit authenticating against their oh so secure MS domain, apparently.
"the computer store's network is a "work" network for the employees, would MS 10 Home machines refuse to connect to them?"
See above. To some of the Windows dependent, maybe a network is a domain. The rest of the world knows otherwise.
I upgraded from an old XP 32bit laptop to a new shiny 64bit Laptop with Win10. I paid extra for Win7, because Win10 was horrible GUI and wouldn't run most of my existing windows only software.
Win7 wouldn't either:
1) It didn't want to even install ANY 16 bit windows software.
2) Some Win32 wouldn't install.
3) The majority of the Win32 SW (Windows only and often no new version) wouldn't work at all after install. Both CAE and games.
So I installed Linux Mint Mate Desktop Redmond theme as Dual boot and mounted the NTFS partition as <usernname>_files in "home". Most of the old stuff that wouldn't work on Win7 or Win10 works on Wine, latest versions Digiguide and Notepad++ work on Wine. All the newer stuff had Linux native versions (Eagle, Calibre, Putty, FileZilla, LibreOffice, various planetarium SW, Firefox. Thunderbird, Inkscape, The Gimp) or equivalent functionality software. Fortunately I no longer need to run Sage. I used PSP7 rather than Photoshop, but had been learning The Gimp on Windows anyway.
"Win7 wouldn't either:
1) It didn't want to even install ANY 16 bit windows software.
2) Some Win32 wouldn't install."
That's because 64-bit Windows doesn't run 16-bit code, be it Win16 or DOS software. 32-bit Windows runs Win16 (and DOS executables).
Some 32-bit software used 16-bit installers and those fail. You can either a) install 32-bit Windows 7, or b) install the free XP Mode virtual machine. 32-bit Windows has it's drawbacks regarding RAM, and the XP Mode isn't fit for games.
"3) The majority of the Win32 SW (Windows only and often no new version) wouldn't work at all after install. Both CAE and games."
Which games and CAE programs didn't work with Windows 7 but did work under Wine?
I have played some pretty old Windows games with Win7 and later operating systems. Games such as Ultima IX, Half-Life, Settlers 2(3?) and so on. I once had a 32-bit Windows 8 laptop just for Civ 1 for Win3.11. Some games have required fiddling with e.g. copy protection cracks and such.
After watching the #MicrosoftEDU Keynote (after skipping past Satya Nadella, yep - I know everyone else did too), I had real trouble taking the whole keynote seriously.
Why? Microsoft Teams! / IT Crowd.
MS Marketing would be better to licence this clip from IT Crowd, if they really want Microsoft Teams! and Cortana to become common knowledge with the general public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nPVAh78n34
Is anyone really surprised MS would get up to these shenanigans? If you are, where have you been all these years? The only thing I'm truly surprised by this is why MS hadn't done something similar before. Whoever came up with making people pay for something they should already have is brilliant.Oh wait a minute, they have done this before and it's practically their business model. Make crap, force people to pay for shit that works. Why do people stay with it? Some people (such as myself) simply cannot afford to purchase the best new Apple thingy every year or two. Why not use linux? Because I don't know what flavor I want, and I don't have the time to search hither and yon to find what works best for me, not to mention the people that already use linux lording over me how smart they are and how stupid I must be because I had the temerity to ask a simple question. So screw it, I'll just use whatever ships with the computer (or my tablet) and use that, if it doesn't allow me to put what I want on it, I'll just google it and figure out how.
Not to worry folks, our governments are right on their tail. And you can rest assured that after 15 years or so they will have concluded their investigations and will then demand that Microsoft provides another browser together with Windows.
Even though no one really cares anymore about it because at that time we will have moved onto something new.
We are looking at this from what we would buy for our children rather than what our children would like to have and use. K-12 kids usually get what mummy and daddy buys for them, whereas university kids get to say what best suits their needs. If it were up to the kids, what would they say about W10 S and what it has to offer them?
We have kids in our family who have access to an x.86 desktop, but it is setup with Google as the search engine and the browsers are Chrome and Firefox. We have several x32 apps on the system, but the kids seldom use them. They have never seen Edge, IE or Bing .
Are the kids asking for Windows 10 and what it has to offer? School districts are not promoting whatever MS has on tap. The Education Departments are not referencing the Microsoft Store as having apps that should be included in the curriculum or used by students for study projects or homework. Teachers mostly see W7 systems if they see a Microsoft device (and most are sans IE and Bing).
Yes MS is trying to influence the market to position W10 S as the de facto education OS, but there is no demand for it. The kids, the schools and the governments are not driving the demand and neither are the parents. However with this announcement, parents and teachers are being manipulated, not influenced.
MS is driving the demand.
I find it funny that Microsoft thinks they somehow have the market cornered here. They haven't ever had a large market in education. Apple got there first and now Google. There's this perpetual air of arrogance with M$ that they can force their way into a market and tell the consumers what to do. I have a feeling we'll see Microsoft crumble in our lifetimes.
I did.
No slurp. No malware (well, none worth worrying about to date), no registry (thanks Devuan! I can avoid Pottering's contributions completely!), no forced updates, no gigs of updates, no waiting till "patch tuesday" for updates, no waiting for ages for updates to install, or to be able to use the system after updates. No random deleted drivers or software.
Just a system that does what I want, and tells me if there is an update that I might wish to install on my own time.
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